EDNA01 Earth

Colossal Hybrid Synth

$169

A once in a lifetime collection of electronic sounds derived, warped and re-birthed from Spitfire's enormous and highly valued collection of orchestral sample recordings... the first phase in our e.D.N.A. (ELECTRONIC DNA) project, creating the next generation of sound-ware for the next generation of electronic sound-smiths.

You can buy now, and download anytime

Overview

Phase #1 ‘EARTH’ is a collection of 1900+ basic instruments mangled into 1001 custom patches by our award winning team of composers, sound-smiths, producers and engineers into a collection of play-out-of-the-box “cartridges”. Load up eDNA, with an award winning interface, slam in a cartridge and play play play. Such is the depth of content here that if you were to play each sound for 30 seconds, it would take you exactly 24 hours to listen to every instrument and patch... And that’s without fag and loo breaks. We’re not ambulance chasing here, this is not about the music of now, of yesterday, this is a new chapter, a new sonic arsenal.

Background

Included with the EARTH pack are 1900+ and 1001 custom patches that spring out of the box and bite.

DEVELOPMENT

STEP 1 - ORE
We have been recording the finest orchestral players for seven years now. We have been practising our craft in the creation of the finest strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion libraries. But throughout this period, we have also been harbouring a darker ambition. As many of us here at Spitfire come from the first wave of UK EDM in the 90's we have hungered to get our hands on these awesome sounds for our own ill gotten gains. For the last seven years there has been a secret hard drive, a depository of the best of these orchestral recordings saved to create the ultimate raw material, the ultimate ore, a set of polished diamonds waiting to be roughed up all over again.

STEP 2 - WARP STAGE
For the last 5 years we have been experimenting with orchestral warping and many of these early attempts have been enjoyed by a large group of users using the beautiful and sometimes downright dirty "Stephenson's Steam Band" sections of our Albion range. In these early years we set about finding the most rarefied analogue outboard equipment, synths, filters, gates, verbs, and also commissioned and created a rare set of bespoke digital signal paths. At regular points over the last few years we have taken our secret drive out of it's secret cupboard, pulled the sounds up and fed them through these multi stage signal paths. We often left it simmering overnight, creating the most delicious and sometimes just 'wrong' set of sounds.

STEP 3 - SOUND SETS to SOUND BANKS
During the warp stage we created well over a terabyte of data. Needing to cut this down to a reasonable size, the Spitfire team of multi award winning composers, producers, techs and engineers set about pairing this down to the very best of the best. From this we created a set of multi-sampled Sound-Sets. The very building blocks of 'Earth' itself. These were then organised by sound-type into manageable Sound-Banks.

STEP 4 - THE e.D.N.A. ENGINE
Over the last seven years Spitfire - in partnership with Blake Robinson - have been creating intuitive and ingenious scripts, simple to use GUIs and attractive front ends. A year ago, we wiped the script clean and set about creating a monster of a new script engine. This we call eDNA. With more details to follow, we will show how the sound sets and banks of 'Earth' can be used in conjunction with the eDNA engine to quickly, dramatically and awesomely customise sounds beyond recognition.

STEP 5 - SADISTIC SOUNDSMITHS
Once the sound banks were implanted into eDNA, we distributed 'Earth - Beta' around our state-of-the-art complex in Central London, UK. Spitfire is a team of award winning composers, producers, track makers, and engineers. Using this pedigree, we have created a jaw dropping number of the original, haunting, beautiful, epic, angry, fat and down-right unpleasant sounds. We ignored the zeitgeist, we ignored what's been before and just set about creating something new. With eDNA's delightful GUI, this uncharted territory of new sonic experimentation is one knob or slider away from making it your own. Or simply start from the "vanilla" sound-banks, roll your sleeves up and give eDNA a tickle.

Features

1900+ Factory instruments and 1001 custom patches designed by our award winning team. Organised into virtual cartridges, slam one in and play play play!

Imagine the eDNA engine as a set of two turntables and a massively complex DJ mixer. It contains two sound bays with individual and independent modulators, control of trim, bend, glide, cloning, tuning, ADSR and lpfs and hpfs and wobbles that modulate pitch, volume and filters.

There is an onboard gate sequencer that allows independent gating between these two bays and unified control of amount, and shape, speed and length of sequence.

These two signals are then at last unified with a DJ style x-fader. Move between the sounds with the mouse or the factory-default assigned modulation wheel. But it doesn't stop there. We've designed a custom script that oscillates the x-fader automatically with control over speed and phase.

Last but not least is eDNA's five stage FX path with 34 custom plugins (including a bunch of bespoke IRs) pre-loaded. There are two "layer fx" stages that effect sound A or B. A "motorised" FX stage that can either effect A, B or both. A master FX stage that effects the entire output. Finally an auxilliary FX stage that can be sent via the layers or master FX stage. Any parameter of these can be assigned for automation or assignment to your controller. See this diagram to understand eDNA's signal patch more fully:

WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE eDNA 'CARTRIDGE'

"Earth" is an anthology of 1900+ vanilla instruments and 1001 custom patches in our 'artist' collections. If you were to spend no more than 30 second listening to every sound on Earth (excuse pun) it would take you 24 hours of solid listening, without fag or loo breaks. To make sense of this awesome arsenal of sonic weaponry we've organise everything into cartridges. With the artists we have briefed them on a sonic "style" with our factory cartridges we have largely organised by type of sound and have released our first "best of" compiled by Christian Henson the chief curator on the Earth project.

Here's a quick guide to the thinking behind each cartridge to give you further guidance.

ARTIST COLLECTIONS (BUNDLED WITH EARTH)

Our award winning team of composers, engineers and producers have spent the last 6 months tasked with wrestling Earth's 1900+ vanilla patches into an awesome array of eDNA patches. From beautifully refined dynamic MW x-fades to turbo charged tempo sync'd gated and phased wonders. Here's the first 8 of many more to come!

APOCALYPZ - Sounds from the edge of reasonable. - Urban stalwart Jefferson Chambers presents a series of sounds that bite, easily the edgiest cartridge in the Earth collection. Featuring many searing leads, senseless chaotic frenzied hell, super fat basses, spluttering and gurgling vowels and atmospheric pads that give you no hope. A truly dystopian vision delivered by a truly disturbed individual. Suitable not only for the rougher end of EDM this set of sounds would also fit well in with hybrid blockbuster and trailer work. Whoever you're playing out to, they're never going to have heard these sounds before!

MOVIEDROME - Modern hybrid widescreen. - Multi award winning composer Christian Henson has just wrapped on the epic two year job of creating a score for the much anticipated "Alien Isolation". In this cartridge Christian has curated his favourite sounds from Earth and has taken them to new levels within the eDNA engine to provide you with a rich palette of sounds suitable for the big screen. From a centre piece of synthetic orchestral instruments, to beautiful awe inspiring pads from another world, to Henson's willfull abandon of the sonic rule book. Christian shares with us electronic chops from 15 years of award winning work both in the movies and in the first wave of UK Drum & Bass.

DISCOMAN - Mainstream zeitgeist synths and patterns. - Sonic aristocrat, Stanley Gabriel brings us his unique approach to sonic manipulation and groove creation. This cartridge features the lighter side of 'EARTH' with many sounds that would sit well in contemporary and edgy pop and dance. This cartridge centres around Stanley's skills in creating infectious grooves both from the Gate Sequencer and from the many Time Machine based groove sequences within the EARTH vanilla instrument pool.

DISPHORIA - EDM classics and next gen dance. - The Spitfire EDM collective F6F Hellcat have worked hard to create a fresh new look at many classic EDM sounds. Disphoria takes you on a journey from quirky 8 bit and vintage game console sounds, through ambient techno, minimal house all the way along to steppy stuff that should carry and adult advisory! This is a cartridge to save for the weekend!

ANALOGANAUT - Digital vs Analogue synth battles. - As chief curator on EARTH, Christian offers up a second collection of sounds that centre on the less orchestrally derived aspects of the EARTH anthology. Many of the vanilla instruments in EARTH derive from merging organic elements with Christian's fine, rarefied vintage synthesizer collection. Along with the most valuable library of sample organic elements, Junos, Jupiters, SH's MS20's, Moogs and TB's have been employed to create a whole new world of sonic opportunities. One of the more retrospective of EARTH's cartridge selection, Henson investigates his youth bunking into x rated thrillers in the late 1970s and a childhood that witnessed the dawn of digital.

SOUND SWAMP - A lake of dynamic x-fade, pads, atmos, drones & fx - Harnek is the youngest member of the Spitfire Earth team. With his finger on the zeitgeist he created many "now" sounds for Disphoria but was also given stewardship of the sound swamp (well someone had to do it). This cartridge features the simplest sonic couplings and operates within a hinterland between organic orchestral material. Many of you who use Albion and the Stephenson synths will know what this is. A selection of sounds that beautifully crossfade between their natural dynamic origins. That sound almost like earthly instruments and ensembles. But just not quite. This cartridge is the most atmospheric and beautiful collections within this new arsenal of sound ware.

WHEELSPIN - The concept is simple. Hold a sound down and move the modulation wheel up very very slowly. Every sound here is programmed to morph out of all recognition via vibrant shimmering paths leaving haunting trails. Wheelspin completes the free bundle of artists cartridges shipped with Earth.

KINEMATIK - MATT BOWDLER AKA THE UNIFINISHED DELVES INTO THE INTERSTELLAR WORLD THAT IS EDNA - EARTH TO CREATE THE MUTHA OF ALL ADD-ON PRESET PACKS. ** NB REQUIRES A FULL VERSION OF EDNA - EARTH TO RUN **

GUIs

eDNA Engine

Over the last seven years Spitfire - in partnership with Blake Robinson - have been creating some of the most intuitive and ingenious scripts, simple to use GUIs and attractive front ends. A year ago, we wiped the script clean and set about creating a monster of a new script engine. This we call eDNA. Two sets of sounds can be used in conjunction with the eDNA engine to quickly, dramatically and awesomely create a new audio experience for the next generation of music makers.

Main FX Window

Icons illustrate the plugins loaded into the 34 enclosures spread across 5 FX racks within the eDNA engine. These have been hand picked and customised by our award winning team of sound-smiths to provide the most effective results at the stage they fall in the signal patch. Click on the plugin to reveal it's parameters and then assign these to your "Quick FX" dash on your front panel to assign to controllers and/or automate.